The Thing in the Woods [Phayu x Rain] (Love in the Air)

Chapter 6

‘Miss Hair or Miss Faked Affair’

Spectators are in uproar at this year’s Miss Hair contest. Miss A. Aanong (25) won the title of Miss Hair in 1958 in a very unusual way. Her glossy, unbelievably long golden locks are said to have grown in a record-breaking two days. Scepticists are armed and ready to tear the title out of the freshly chosen Miss Hair 1958’s hands.

Judge F. Boonya, one of the head judges, confided in us about their suspicion of foul play. There is no concrete evidence to support their claim, but in their opinion, A. Aanong’s hair growth is ‘unnatural’, and the contestant should therefore be disqualified.

Specialist hairdressers have since inspected the contestants’ hair and have concluded that it is authentic and, therefore, valid.

In A. Aanongs opinion, anybody can have luscious hair like hers. You just have to follow her regimented ten-step hair routine.

Be a cut above everyone else and continue reading as A. Aanong reveals her secrets to follicletastic hair that is said to even glow in the dark.

[R. Patana, Daily Eye, 1958, p. 12]

~

Sky and Rain went through several years’ worth of Daily Eye articles. At some point, they even managed to secure themselves a second computer for their research. At least that way, they could split the workload easier.

Each boy scanned one article after another in search of anything weird going on in town years ago, around the time Rain’s grandmother had been a ‘child’.

Rain didn’t actually know what exact age she’d been in her story. Without the precise date, the boys could only narrow the timeframe down very roughly.

Rain was looking through an edition of the Daily Eye from 1958 when an article caught his eye.

“Sky!” he shouted in excitement.

“Psst!” The librarian hushed him right away, staring daggers in his direction.

“Sky,” he murmured in a much lower volume. “Look at this one. This article talks about a girl with unnaturally quick-growing hair. It could be something.”

“Let me see,” Sky said, rolling his chair around to see Rain’s screen. He skimmed the article and frowned.

“You gotta be kidding me, Rain! This is an article about a Miss Hair Pageant! Why would you think this has anything to do with what’s happening here?”

Rain was a bit taken aback by Sky’s tone. “Are you alright?” he asked in worry. “You look a bit tense.”

Sky sighed, “Sorry, my head is hurting. I think I’ve been staring at the computer too long. I will be fine. Now let me understand why you think this article is so important.”

It probably wouldn’t help Sky’s head if Rain told him that he just knew it was important.

“Do you remember Nana had said that people changed back then? This is a pretty big change, don’t you think?”

“Don’t think so literally, Rain. I think what your grandmother meant was that the people who changed behaved differently.” Sky rubbed his temples. “We should stop for today. My head is killing me.”

It wasn’t really a surprise that Sky was feeling the day’s stress creeping up on him. Not with everything that had happened.

“You are right,” Rain agreed.

Even if it felt tough to stop what he was doing, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that they were close to finding the missing piece for putting everything in context. They just needed one more push…